Refocusing the war on cancer: the critical role of personalized treatment.

Abstract

Despite very substantial investment and effort over the past 30 years, the overall survival rate of cancer patients has changed little. We propose that without a truly robust mechanism for selecting the right treatment for the right patient at the right time-the central concepts of personalized medicine-we will continue to see only incremental improvements and have little hope for substantial survival gains. We suggest that it is now imperative that future clinical trials be designed with a plan to incorporate biomarker development.